Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

As if hit by a thunderbolt, Jin Xinyue was dumbfounded for a long time, unable to say anything.

She lost the ability to think, but from the deepest part of her body, the tremor named ‘ambition’ was quickly spreading all over her body!

Her father’s expectant eyes seemed to be keys that opened the strength hidden deep inside her blood. Taking a long breath, she tried to calm herself down before she mumbled, “Why me? I am too weak. Without the help of father and Master, I cannot even defeat the demon emperors.”

“You are the best choice. I didn’t pick you because you were my daughter but because of a unique advantage that nobody else has,” Jin Tuyi explained casually. “Of course, you are still very weak right now. But we are talking about the future a hundred years from now.

“You are already a demon king, or in the Core Formation Stage, and you have the enlightenment of a great teacher. In a hundred years, your wisdom, physical status, and training experience will be in the peak. There is no doubt that you will be a demon emperor or march into the Nascent Soul Stage.

“More importantly, faced with the threat of the Imperium of True Human Beings, the new federation will need to be highly united. Then, a leader who is deeply connected to the Blood Demon Sector, the Flying Star Sector, and the Heaven’s Origin Sector will have to be elected to balance the interests of different parties.

“You were born in the demon race and are rooted in the Blood Demon Sector. The demons and the federal citizens who are sympathetic to demons will certainly support you.

“There’s no need to talk about your master’s influence in the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector. As long as you are loyal to your master and turn into his agent, it is not impossible to win the support of the big shots.

“It must be noted that, although your master has achieved immense power and influence in both the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector after only ten years, if we get to the bottom of it, he is neither good at nor passionate about using his influence to build up his forces.

“It is not because he isn’t smart enough but because that’s just not what he wants. He seems to have a higher pursuit.

“However, what your master has neglected is what you are best at.

“Your master doesn’t have any children yet. According to the traditions of Cultivators, as his true disciple, you should be among his most trusted people.

“Therefore, you should deserve his trust. You should take the opportunity to participate in the management and operation of the organizations under his name. You will develop the organizations slowly until they grow into influential forces in the new federation!

“You will be able to provide more resources for your master’s training while increasing your personal influence, making friends with more experts, and establishing broader connections and communities of interests. Finally, you will campaign for the supreme leader of the new federation with all the support that you have built up. Won’t it be a win-win?”

Jin Xinyue bit her teeth and said, “Father, please don’t forget that I will forward our conversation today to Master without leaving anything out.”

Jin Tuyi burst into laughter. “Tell him all you want. I am different from Elder Nether Spring. I am not scared of my enemy learning my plan or hearing my words!”

Jin Xinyue considered carefully, not whether she should agree to her father’s plan or not, but about the odds of success.

After thinking for a long time, she shook her head and said, “My background is not clean. In the past years, I have done countless clandestine things. Although they were all to do with the internal strife of the Blood Demon Sector and no one from the federation was killed, I am afraid that I will still be judged as ‘cruel and merciless’. Even if… even if an election is really held in a hundred years, my competitor will certainly dig out the history to attack me. Why will everyone pick a cold hearted, ruthless leader?”

Jin Tuyi’s laughter turned into a confident smile. He shook his head again. “You are wrong again, my daughter. The dark history in your early years is not your taint at all. Instead, it is your trump card!

“If it is an election in peacetime, naturally, people will have concerns about a cold hearted, ruthless leader.

“However, in a hundred years, it will be the critical moment when the expedition army of the Imperium of True Human Beings approaches. It will be the time of a life-and-death war!

“At that time, what the new federation needs will be a cold hearted, ruthless, and intelligent leader. Only with nerves that are cold enough will the leader be able to shoulder the pressure of the war and lead the new federation to the ultimate victory!

“Therefore, even if your rivals do not attack you with your dark history, you should hire some reporters in secret and ask them to dig it out, elaborate, and attack yourself viciously, thereby proving to all the citizens of the federation that you are a leader who is strong enough to survive in any disadvantageous environments and secure a victory with all possible methods!”

Jin Xinyue was stunned.

Jin Tuyi placed his hands on the top of her daughter’s head. Three bloody moons were shining right behind him. Mysterious forces seemed to flow out of his body and pour into his daughter’s skull through his palms.

“My daughter, let me ask you again. Are you ambitious, confident, and determined to be the first female Speaker of Parliament who has the blood of demons in the history of the Star Glory Federation before the Imperium of True Human Beings comes?”

Jin Xinyue was silent for a long time.

She gritted her teeth, and her body was trembling. She seemed to be both fighting against her father’s strength and devouring her father’s strength, vitality, and ambitions.

A short moment later, she stopped trembling. Exotic brilliance the same as that in Jin Tuyi’s eyes was beaming out of Jin Xinyue’s eyes.

“Father…”

Moonlight came from Jin Tuyi’s back and covered Jin Xinyue’s face in a scarlet mask.

Her voice was as soft as a feather, and yet it was so resolute that it sounded like a nail that was smashed against steel.

“If I dedicate my entire life to the Red Tide Plan, the integration of the three Sectors and the two races, and the growth of the ‘new federation’, then the new federation will be my life, my soul, my everything!

“I will not allow anyone, or any force, to divide it, sabotage it, or destroy it!

“If I am indeed elected as the supreme leader of the ‘Star Glory Federation’ one day, everything I do will be based on the interest of the Star Glory Federation instead of the selfish interests of demons or human beings.

“The Star Glory Federation under my leadership will be destined to be a formidable civilization of mankind but not one of the demon race.

“However thoroughly you have planned, and despite the ‘conditional surrender’, we are now surrendering after all. In the hundred years of integration and assimilation, human beings will certainly hold the dominant position. In a hundred years, even those with bloodlines of demons will consider themselves ‘human beings’ instead of ‘demons’!

“The name and banner of the demon race will be gone forever and will probably never come back!

“Therefore, if you are hoping to resurrect the ‘demons’ in a hundred years in such a way, I am afraid that I will disappoint you and even stand against you in the future!

“Have you ever considered that, Father?”

“Of course I have. But does it matter?” Jin Tuyi coughed softly. “Names and banners are both made up. ‘Human being’ and ‘demon’ are two notions that are not natural but defined. Therefore, they can be changed and twisted, too.

“Our race will abandon the name and banner of the past, but we will reap the entire sea of stars. What’s bad about that?”

Jin Xinyue narrowed her eyes and asked, “You don’t care even if the name of ‘demon’ will completely perish in the passage of time, Father? It doesn’t seem to be your goal, Father.”

“No, it won’t perish.” Brilliance of excitement emanated from Jin Tuyi’s face again. He stared at the rolling clouds in the moonlight and said slowly, “All history is contemporary history. Truth of history? There isn’t such a thing at all!

“The Star Glory Federation has fought the demon race for five hundred years and hates our guts. That’s why their textbooks expound on the ‘evil’ history of the demon race and call our thirty-thousand-year reign the ‘Great Dark Age’.

“But are the thirty thousand years really nothing but darkness, without the slightest brightness?

“As the successors of the civilization of ancient human beings, did we never create a more splendid civilization?

“I believe that the textbooks of the Flying Star Sector will not say much about the so-called ‘Great Dark Age’. If you ever encounter new worlds where human beings have never seen any demons in the past ten thousand years, they will not care about the ‘Great Dark Age’ at all!

“Do you understand now, my daughter? The future of the demon race depends on you, and so does our past!

“If you turn out to be a great leader who leads the Star Glory Federation to defeat the Imperium of True Human Beings, march into the Empyrean Terminus Sector as counterattack, and integrate all the human beings and demons in the three thousand Sectors, creating an unprecedently formidable country, then, one day, our posterity will look at the demon race in a different light. They will study the thirty-thousand-year Great Dark Age without bias and define it as a key period of transition between the ‘ancient civilization’ and ‘modern civilization’. They will publish papers on the shining points in the ‘Great Dark Age’ sparing no effort. They will consider mankind, the demon race, the Demon Beast Empire, and the Star Ocean Imperium like more of a transition.

“Demons shall be acknowledged as human beings in a different form. The thirty thousand years of history shall be admitted as part of the history of mankind. The unforgettable grudge in the past shall become the dust of history sooner or later!”

Jin Tuyi’s words blew away the last bit of confusion inside Jin Xinyue’s head. She opened her hands, somewhat at a loss, apparently not prepared to control the future and the past of the demon race with such a pair of tiny hands.

But her hesitation was gone the next moment. Jin Xinyue smiled softly, and the air around her was utterly different from one second earlier.

“I promise you, Father.”

Jin Xinyue pressed her chest with both of her hands, as if she was pushing the future and the past of the demon race into her heart.

Staring at her father in the eyes, she declared, one word after another, “I will complete the Red Tide Plan with my life and realize everything that you have predicated just now. I become the Speaker of Parliament in the Star Glory Federation!”